


Sunday Afternoon on the Crossings Hypergate Facility

by 222Ravens



Category: Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Gender, Sexuality, University, and fast food, bad tv, discussions of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-05
Updated: 2014-07-05
Packaged: 2018-02-07 01:40:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1880172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/222Ravens/pseuds/222Ravens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Carmela helps out with a world-gating glitch, flirts outrageously with a mermaid, gorges on snacks at the Crossings, attempts to discuss the finer points of identity spectrums, and hangs out with everyone's favourite Christmas tree.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunday Afternoon on the Crossings Hypergate Facility

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Robotamputee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Robotamputee/gifts).



> Hope you like it!  
> 

It’s a quiet sort of Sunday when Carmela’s phone goes off. The instrumental version of ‘ _O Tannenbaum_ ’, discordant against the j-Pop currently blaring through her laptop speakers in a way that probably violated warranties in at least two separate galaxies.

 

Summertime, though, which meant Carmela had been sprawled halfway across her bed. Her tapping out the beat on the cover of the magazine beside her had been the limit of her activity. She’d done a manicure earlier, too, but that was hardly _work_. The custom ringtone, though, was enough to stir her. Diving off her bed to grab it, she grins. A half empty bowl of cereal beside her wobbles at the movement, coming near to flipping.

 

Carmela brings the phone up to her ear, and gleefully screeches, “FILIF! _Daiii_! How’s my very favourite tree?”

 

Filif chuckles. More precisely, r _ustles_ in a particular way, but Carmela is more than used to interpreting.“ _Dai_ to you, as well. You know, technically that’s something wizards ought to say. Is it not? I’m not certain as to the etiquette there. ”

 

Carmela shrugs, stretching in her pyjamas. “All on the One’s business, way I see it. And some of my own, but that doesn’t exactly run counter to Their interests. Oooh… How’s the berries?”

 

“The pollination cycle went quite well. Thank you for inquiring. It was a long one for me. I delayed switching over for a time. I like the change of it, once in a while.”

 

“So still on the feminine pronouns at the moment, or back to male?” That was the closest translation, at least. Given the Speech, she could be a little more specific. The phrasing she used in place of ‘male’ and ‘female’ implied a certain amount more of fluidity there. The sense that it was less a permanent identity and more a changeable thing, though no less real for it.

 

“Male, and thank you.”

 

“Cool. Still female for me.” Carmela replies, just to confirm, because hey, that’s polite, right?

 

“I had assumed so. Humans seem to be more static in these things, do they not? As a general rule, with exceptions that are…”

 

Carmela huffs a breath, searching for the right words. “Usually? I mean, we’re typically born one thing or another, or at least we get labelled that way, and typically it’s a label that fits. Some people fit more into the category of …” She continues, listening a few pronouns or concepts in the Speech that falls under similar criteria of implying a shift from one to another, a reassertion of a status previously hidden but no less present throughout, or an undefined or variable state. 

 

Entirely fascinating to find that kind of richness in terms of language for stuff like that, especially given the comparative rigidity of Carmela’s native tongue. Seriously, Spanish was _weird_ for that. Computadora? The only computer Carmela had talked to recently identified as _male_ , thank you. Honestly, such arbitrary classifications, there.  

 

Had been an interesting bit of research, looking some of those up. Curiosity was more magical than actual magic, sometimes, and definitely wouldn’t be killing any cats on her watch.

 

Filif appears to be mulling this over. “I knew about the ‘trans-’ aspects, but not all of those. In terms of humanity, I do admit I skimmed a bit on the précis packages in the manual.”

 

That draws a chuckle out of her, this time. “Honestly? Most of humanity skipped over that particular précis package entirely. It’s a bit of a limited release, at the moment, sadly.”

 

“Still, an oversight on my part, I must admit. Your conception of gender and related categories as a species seemed much stricter on my first examination, I must say, with all of the different markers and behaviour and decorations that appear to be specific to one or another of your genders, and so few commonly accepted pronouns—It must be very complicated! Not to critique, Powers above! Merely… Hmm. Are you well?”

 

“Decent enough. Bored, but that’s unavoidable, given the time of year.”

 

“What ‘time of year’ might that be?”

 

“Summertiiiiiime.” She half sings, half-answers, scooping up the bowl and moving to carry it downstairs. “I know, I know, entirely my fault for not getting the jump on things. Everyone is all ‘think about university options’ and ‘make sure you are doing activities that will look good on a college application’, but I mean, _please._ I just need to find a uni with a wizard on the application board. Let Kit argue that’s cheating, but I mean, come on, saving the entire Crossings Hypergate Facility from a bunch of little mercenaries dude  has _got_ to rank higher than a dinky little internship. Oh, and that’s not even getting into _translating an entire alien language_. I mean, seriously, natural steganographic gift? Linguistics programs, here I come! If I want to do that. I have _no idea_. Ugh. Decisions suck. Hence the dancey music and avoidance of responsibilities, because rijakh that!”

 

“ _Carmela!_ ”Filif rustled. 

 

She blinked, innocently. “I did use that right? It was sort of hard to tell from the context.”

 

“You used it appropriately, but it’s hardly… Well… _Appropriate.”_

 

 _“_ Appropriate is for suckers. And not the crunchy sugary kind that…” Carmela frowned, suddenly saddened by memories. “Never mind. Besides, when an exalted wizard like Mamvish can use it, why not me?”

 

Filif hums. “I suppose.””

 

There was a moment of silence at the other end of the line. “With 'college'. You are referring to your… Educational institutions? Is this the correct interpretation? There are differing levels of this, are there not? The next level of which offers greater specialization in the learning, but requires an application process? I must confess I always neglect to remember that you are so close to being considered an adult by your species standards. I’ve several decades yet, by your years, before I qualify.”

 

Carmela nods, phone cradled to the side of her head, just above the luridly magenta tank top. “About the size of it. No colleges over in Demisiv?”

 

The sink was surprisingly empty of dishes, so Carmela dumped it there. She nodded absently at her mother, who was also comfortably eating breakfast at 1 o’clock in the afternoon. Given the night-shift she had worked, though, she had a much better excuse than Carmela’s lazing. Her mother raised an eyebrow, then mouthed, “Who is it?’.

 

“Filif!” Carmela stage whispered back, and got a shake of a head and a rueful smile. The smile widened when she grabbed the coffee pot to give her mother a refill, though, after which she headed back upstairs.  

 

Carmela was pretty sure her parents could have reacted to the whole ‘our daughter hangs out with aliens’ thing a lot worse, but to be fair, she had to thank Kit for helping to clear the way by dropping a bombshell first. It was still funny to see them have occasionally moments of confusion about it all, though. Less fun were ‘serious’ conversations about exercising restraint interstellar shopping sprees.

 

Less fun, too, was having her big sister around. Helena was great in small doses, but also the only person in the household she’d really needed to avoid on the subject, which was a major bummer. The ‘parental lock’ on the television, too, was a pain, but after the first time Helena had turned it on without anyone else in the room? Entirely necessary.

 

“Nothing of the sort that you would consider it,” Filif continued, “Learning tends to be a less structured thing, though occasionally some of us will travel to another forest, to share what we know of the world, our stories, and to taste of their soil, or study under another for a time. Then there are the great gatherings, a week on either side of the longest and shortest days of the year, when we all sing to the light and the darkness and…” The phone line trailed off.  

 

“Sounds fun. So, the call… Business, or just for funsies?”

 

“Er, business, I’m afraid.”

 

“Nothing else to do. Shoot.” She says. Her mother coughs ‘ _chores_!’ just as she disappears upstairs. 

 

For a second she heard nothing on the other end of the line. “I hate to ask this of you, and if I could, I would not make it a regular occurrence, it’s just that… I’m on my way home after some errantry business, and there was a glitch in this system that caused my gate to malfunction. It was part of a chain reaction in the matrixes that caused the misalignment of several gating clusters, and since it’s a non-emergency transit I’m hardly a high priority.”

 

“Your flight got bumped?” 

 

“To use your vernacular, I suppose that’s a similar enough situation that the analogy applies, certainly! Well put.”

 

“So, you want to borrow my closet, or?” It’s halfway rhetorical, as she is already pulled open her neat closet and glancing speculatively inside.

 

There’s a vaguely guilty silence. “If it’s an inconvenience to you at all, you are more than within your rights to refuse. I wouldn’t want to impose. I have the time, it’s just… It would require more resources to fix the world gate at the moment than…”

 

Carmela laughs. “Filif, you _magnificent tree of life._ Of _course_ I will. Give me… half hour, tops, and I’m _beyond_ there. Tell me your gate number, will you, and give me the word on the temperature at the Crossings right now. I heard they were messing around with that last week.”

 

“The temperature?”

 

“ _What to wear, silly.”_

 

True to her word, half an hour later and 11.4 lightyears, Carmela shouldered her way past the very busily thronging hordes of entities on one of the many concourses, getting her bearings.

 

This now-familiar place still disoriented her. Her first visit had been strange enough—Darkness, echoing with laser-fire and a crisply unsettling smell. But Crossings at a peak hour of transit was an entirely different and delightful animal.

 

An entirely yellow and faintly sticky blob oozed across the floor, here. The floor of the area slowly absorbed the residual slime, until it disappeared. Carmela waited for the floor to work. Finally done, she kept stepping in her totally cute shoes around a family reunion of sorts. There, a eighteen-limbed and carapaced being was chittering away gleefully, encircled by three delighted smaller versions of itself. 

 

It was easy, faced with such arrays, to be stuck strictly focused on the differences. Yet some things never quite changed. And, if she was putting her business eyes on, a _lot_ of them were potential clients in the chocolate business. But Carmela wasn’t here for that, so she hopped on the slide field, while looking at the… What was it, Lilene architecture? It was pretty, was what it was.

 

She allowed herself a minute or two to sight-see, before getting back into the search for Filif’s gate. It was a bit of a distance, but the slide field made for quick transit, at least. She spent the time with a comb and a pocket mirror, mostly, without paying much attention to her surroundings. No matter how fantastic her magic closet happened to be,she still swore that big jumps made her hair frizzy. 

 

Eventually, she found the right concourse, and from there, made her way to the waiting area. It was a relatively small one, for what seemed to be only two gates, and had only two occupants.  

 

“Filif!” Carmela swivelled her head, getting her bearings in the room, and waved at them. 

 

“Carmela!” Filif said, branches moving in a whispering wave. “Thank you for coming!”

 

 

Carmela was still turning, and abruptly came face to face with another being present at the scene. Rather than standing, they were floating. A water- bubble spell of a similar type to what she’d seen S’ree and others use. 

 

To say they were a 'mermaid' was, perhaps, a slight over-simplication. Still, it was close enough that Carmela felt she could get away with it. They were a small being. Barely four and a half feet to head to tail, but broadly built. Their bottom half was closer in form to the dolphin she'd visited once with Kit, in shape at least, the general form of it. If a dolphin’s skin was a play of brilliant blue and purple colours, and looked as it was covered in a million tiny anemones that moved with the current. On closer glance, it appeared that it was, indeed, something like an anemone, living on the being in what Carmela could only assume was a symbiotic relationship. 

 

The top half looked almost humanoid, but was of the same colour (albeit smoother in texture), and was in possession of four arms. The hands, too, interested Carmela. At first she thought them entirely webbed. As one of them reached out to wave back, tentatively the webbing retracted. Prehensile fingers, when necessary, and webbing for greater maneuverability underwater.

 

It was all a bit funny, until they turned to her with a smile, and they were _beautiful._

 

“To heck with _thanking_ me, introduce me to your friend, here.” Carmela muttered.

 

The request ended up being unnecessary. “I am Kilnjkchuulnaith. Be welcome to where the current has swept you, traveller."

 

Carmela thought for a moment before speaking, something of an event in itself. It helped, though. “I am Carmela Rodrigeuz, and I am _very pleased_ it has brought me to these waters."

 

The grin grew wider, and the end of the fins flared brighter purple.

 

 Carmela smiled back. “Nice fins,” and then she squinted. She had _thought_ there was something familiar about this planet. “Ohhh! Are you from the planet _Oceans of Fate_ comes from? I love that show! Well, ‘love’ in a certain sense, of ‘oh gosh this is so ridiculous it becomes wonderful’ kinda way. But that’s the best kind of show.”

 

Kilnjkchuulnaith perked up. “ _Ejrii!_ Tell me you’ve caught up with the latest season!”

 

“Not yet, I must admit, but I swear, I will _totally_ work on that. I’m right up to the point where Jherjhkejruiith switched the eggs of her first nest mate for eggs of the second nest mate, but it ended up that _both_ clutch-mates had been clutch-bretheren the entire time, and so they didn’t even notice, but once Nuuyehitthd found out because of the whole accidental consciousness-switching thing that Ppppeiiiuuugn orchestrated, so his honour was offended, and planned to retaliate by….”

 

The mermaid (and yes, Carmela is still totally going with ‘mermaid’ on this one) pipes in with commentary, which Carmela fires back at. It’s five minutes and three shows in common before Filif interrupts, quietly. 

"Carmela, we must be on our way, I'm afraid. Our friend has business, I think, and her gate is about to become patent. ”

 

"Does this culture have internet yet?" Carmela shot back, still focused onKilnjkchuulnaith, and smiling. 

 

"Yes, but I don't know if..."

 

"Shh... I want her details.” She leaned forward, twirling her hair, and winked. “So, I know your species doesn’t grenfelz, but….”

 

They happily exchange details, and Carmela waves off her new acquaintance, before finally turning back to Filif. There’s a slight _hint_ of guilt at ignoring him for the past few minutes in favour of chatting. It’s mitigated by the fact that she’s very much doing Filif a solid with the whole gating thing. _Probably._ Reasonable enough of an excuse to evaporate the feeling, at least. “Okay, fine. Now confess. Are you in a rush to get home, or did you just want an excuse to hang out?”

 

“Do _you_ really need to go shopping more?” Filif says, berries somehow twinkling, and Carmela elbows him, playfully. In hindsight, it’s not necessarily the best idea. Prickly, to say the least.

 

“Ow. Seriously, though, shush, you love it, and you know it. And I will get you into a more fabulous hat one of these days, I swear.” Carmela threatened, staring rueful at the Mets baseball cap.

 

“But I like this hat!” Filif protested, pulling back out of instinct.

 

Raising her hands in a placating gesture, Carmela demurred. “But no…not at the moment. I’ve got a few orders I’m still waiting for, before I’m supposed to do any more shopping. Something about ‘responsible consumption’ and ‘fiscal responsi…’. Blah blah. I need food. You hungry?”

 

“I could root a while, to keep you company. I’ve no specific plans for at least another few hours, it’s just… They were anticipating the gate wouldn’t be back online until tomorrow, and my portal world gate was left at home, since it’s an easy enough transit in the public system.”

 

“Oh, I am _so_ chewing Ske’ret out for that one, later. Seriously, talk about poor service for friends!”

 

That draws alarm, and a more anxious kind of movement out of Filif. “No, no. The gate for Saalth Q is done, that’s ten thousand transits a day. The gate for Demisiv barely has a few dozen a time during peak time of the rotation. It’s _perfectly_ understandable, and I wouldn’t…”

 

“Joking, Filif. _Joking._ Partly.” She calls back, as she is already pulling up a data-base from the wall-unit, and examining the restaurant selections. “Any preferences? Still got about a thousand vouchers happening. And I promise not to eat anything too closely resembling plant matter in its original form. Not that I’m really a salad-girl, anyway.”

 

She flipped past the listings for food vendors catering to silicon-based life-forms, the arsenic-DNA ones, and a few other categorizations. It was easy enough to have the system do it automatically, but there was a certain amount of amusement in seeing stuff like ‘Only the purest hydrofluoric acid in our cocktails!” listed as a selling point.

 

“Hmm. Thank you. While on an intellectual basis I can understand that plant lifeforms on other planets are not in possession of higher-level consciousness and self-awareness in the same way, it’s still… Discomfiting.”

 

“Unidentifiable junk food it is. Oooh, let’s go with something fried. I feel like fried.” Carmela hit a few buttons, narrowing the search field.

 

“What about this place?” Twisting the view-screen, she tilts it to let Filif see, and he hums. 

 

“I think you may want to read over that listing again. I believe the purpose of that establishment has less to do with consuming food, and more to do with…”

 

Carmela glanced at it again, and winced. “Yikes. Bit much for a Sunday, I think. How about this one? Let’s take a look at the reviews…. Ew. Terrible location, right beside a birthing rooms. Lots of shrieking. So glad I’m not part of that species, have to say. You think periods are bad once a month? Nah. Oooh! _Here_. They’ve got rooting pots and orangey fried food. I got some snacks from this planet in that last care package one of my buddies set as a thank you for the chocolate. It was so good I didn’t even share with Kit. What do you think, lunch?”

 

“I’m amendable.” Filif agrees, and they pass a comfortable quarter hour en-route to the restaurant, chatting about this and that. Somehow they get back onto baseball, and Carmela has to confess that on that particular aspect of Earth culture, she’s wildly out of depth.

 

The restaurant is a little place, all dark shiny walls and furnishing that morph to accommodate the differing body-types of the guests. Carmela settles into the seat, and places her and Filif’s order (‘soil, extra nitrogen, low calcium content, basic’ for Filif, and ‘that one safe for Earth denizens, _homo sapiens sapiens_ type? I’ll take two’ for Carmela) to a cheerful Rirhait native, which allows her to change the subject.

 

When the food arrives, Carmela bites in. Whatever she had ordered, it was crunchy, faintly tangy, and really _really_ good. Filif settles into his pot happily enough, too, and there’s a few minutes of companionable silence.

 

After a time, her friend speaks up. “Carmela, back there, were you… Ohh, what’s the best phrasing for this, I always get this sort of thing confused… ‘Flirting’?”

 

Carmela thought for a moment. “Maybe?”

 

“Oh.” Filif said. “And it doesn’t bother you that they are not of the same species as you are?”

 

Carmela shrugs, dabbing her lip on the bio-napkins, and frowning at the way her lipstick came off. “She was gorgeous, is what she was.”

 

“She did have very lovely colour patterns, I must say. I can appreciate her beauty from that standpoint, certainly.”

 

 “Besides, Filif, I’m pretty sure I flirted with you when we met. You know, I joked about getting a date with you? ” Carmela points out, glad that the discordantly catchy music in the restaurant is at a low enough volume that conversation is easy.

 

“I think I inadvertently translated that wrong. Dates are an Earth plant, are they not? I thought it was in reference to…”

 

“Yes. But no. It’s like… Spending time with someone, in a romantic way? But it’s cool, I’m not really.. I mean, we’re sort of friends, and you don’t necessarily seem the romance type, are you?”

 

Filif perks up at that, seeming pleased that Carmela had caught on. “Not in the sort of way that you would understand, in terms of the reproductive aspects being involved in the bond, specifically. But bonds on an emotional level that has a somewhat different categorization to ‘friendship’ is something my species can entertain. I’m not sure how to describe such a thing in your parlance.”

 

‘Romantic asexual?” Carmela offers, squinting down at her food. Had it just… Moved? No. Probably not? 

 

“That’s a possibility. But not necessarily right Most of us are more comfortable generally what would be considered the bonds of friendship, mentorship, partnerships, or similar concepts?” Filif shifts, appearing to settle better into his pot. It was difficult to tell with the haze around his base. “It’s not to say that we don't experience love, that is certainly not at all the case! And strong bonds, certain, not to discount any of it. Merely not in the context that word seems to imply.”

 

“Okay, queer platonic? Aromantic? Oooh, and you are all piney fresh! Aromatic aromantic.” Carmela laughed, and was happy that particular one translated. Still, if there was one thing the Speech was amazing for, it was puns. Even better than English, really. 

 

“And you? How would you classify yourself?” Filif, himself as curious as always. Good quality. 

Labels. Huh. Another reason why, despite the sheer force of her awesome, she might not have made the best wizard. She got why people liked labels, she did. It was hard to learn something like the Speech, a language so intricately built upon descriptors as the foundation of the universe, and _not_ appreciate the value of labelling. Still, for her? Carmela was still of the opinion that it was her solemn duty in life to simultaneously fulfill and defy as many labels as possible.

“Pansexual? Panromantic? Pan-galatic gargle-blaster? It’s just… It’s a personality thing. And a ‘ooh pretty’ thing. Bit of both. Well, at first it was like, hey, guys are awesome! But then there was a girl in my class, and I just kinda thought she was _incredible_. So I thought, pshhtt, why limit yourself unnecessarily?”

 

Carmela thought for a moment before speaking. Again. What was up with her today?

“I mean, when I found out about the whole wizard thing and Kit and… I kinda had to think about a lot of stuff in my life, you know? It’s not like finding out that the climatic battle for good and evil is not just metaphors is an easy concept to wrap one’s head around. Part of me thought, ‘hey, why didn’t I get one of those manual-y things? But really, I can help out with all that stuff without needing the restrictions. But I still talked to Kit about it, and… First time I went to the moon, I just looked down at the Earth and thought… Huh. Amazing. But also… Wow. There’s a big universe.

So then I start hanging out with aliens, and I’m thinking that some of them are similar enough to be nice. And then the non-similar ones, and just… It’s not about the outside. Outside’s a bonus, but whatever they are underneath that…. Does that make sense? I'm not at the point yet where I need to be worrying about the mechanics of it all, anyway. Not in a big way. Cross that bridge further down the line. But more to the point, I mean… Timeheart, right? What’s loved, lives, as they were, as they were remembered? This is all very existentialist for a happy fun junk food run, but.. Maybe I don’t want to be forgotten, or forget anyone else. So, that means I kinda _have_ to be memorable. And the love/be loved thing. So love everybody, right? Or at least be open to that. Except the annoying ones. Those are what the hair-curler is for. Or chocolate bribery, failing the first two options. Does that makes sense?”

There silence for a minute. “That’s an unorthodox tactic, but I suppose there’s a certain kind of sense to it.”

“Or just be friends with everybody, in your case. Friendship is totally magic, and not just in the tiny cartoon horse kinda way. I mean seriously, when I say ‘love’, I don’t mean in the romancey way. That part is fun for me. Or the kissy-face way. Though again, in my case, fun. In the case of others, like you with your needles? Not so much.Just… Appreciate this big wide universe and everything in it, weird and bad and good and all that. Find everything a little bit beautiful, little bit interesting. Agreed?”

“Entirely.”

“So… Everything make sense?”

Filif shakes his branches. “Half of me wants to say yes. The other part of me acknowledges that there are a great many things in life that I remain deeply perplexed by. Also, that this likely remains one of them.” 

Carmela laughed, and reached over to adjust Filif’s hat, gone askew. “That makes two of us, shrub.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm dubiousculturalartifact on tumblr, if anyone's wondering, by the way.
> 
> Also, I didn't want to mention this earlier while things were still anonymous, as I was worried (since we're related and all) that it would give my identity away, but I would like to thank troublesmysight very VERY much for being an excellent and supportive beta.... And, y'know, for just generally being a pretty awesome sister, really.


End file.
